Grace is the amazing willingness of a holy God to help fallen men and women. When we don’t understand grace we’ll try to become good enough before we think God will act on our behalf. Many of us think we are not worthy and miss out on the incredible resources God showers upon unworthy sinners.
Consider that God used Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. Yet Moses was a murderer! God also helped King David, although he was a murderer and adulterer – both crimes demanded capital punishment. Remember that Paul, who wrote many of the New Testament epistles, had formerly imprisoned and killed God’s believers. Paul said of his being chosen by God to encourage his believers, “The grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant” (1 Timothy 1:14a).
The greatest example of God’s grace is the sacrificial offering of Jesus on the cross to pay the price for our sins. God, a holy and righteous judge, could have simply banished us to h ell to satisfy his justice. Instead, his Son chose to suffer and die for our guilt.
To misunderstand God is to misunderstand grace. Grace is not mercy. When God shows mercy, he refrains from giving us what our iniquities deserve. With grace, we receive what we could never earn on our own. The writer of Hebrews encourages us to come boldly to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16) because Jesus sympathizes with our weaknesses. He does not point out our faults to demoralize us, but to give us strength to overcome. This is grace; instead of punishing us or driving us away, God opens the path to himself, then gives us every resource to triumph over the issue.
God releases grace when we act in faith in a way that furthers his purposes. When we believe God for a particular decision or a Scripture passage, God grants us help for the journey. When God enables by his grace, one consciously labors beyond one’s own ability – and praises God for it. “To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily” (Colossians 1:29). This increases our confidence to persevere in spite of any setbacks.
This grace is so little experienced because God is so little believed. We do not believe because we think we’re not holy or spiritual enough, we’ve done too many bad things, other people ridicule our inspiration and we take it to heart, God has it in for us, we’re satisfied to live for this world, we are too weak, and many other grievous reasons.
“We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain” (2 Corinthians 6:1). If God has given us his Son, how much more will he give us whatever we need for life and godliness? Take hold of God’s promises, run with them, and see what he will do!
What is it like to rest in God’s grace?
With an expectation of God’s grace:
• When taking an particular step, we have an expectation that God will do good, but not necessarily our way. It gives us a positive outlook in life.
• We don’t consider whether we’ve been good or bad. God is not keeping count of our positives and negatives.
• We don’t consider the risk as too great or our sufficiency as too little; we expect God to provide.
• Circumstances don’t discourage us because Jesus is Lord over our circumstances.
• We become more thankful.
• We are not quickly crushed under the pressures of life, for God can use those in our life for good.
Without an expectation of God’s grace:
• We pick away at flaws.
• We are negative about our chances; we expect little or nothing to come of it. So we have less energy to pursue a project, or don’t have the heart to begin.
• Our prayers don’t have an expectation of help or hope; instead, we whine or groan.
• We worry; we are anxious and fussy. We complain about things and don’t recognize the blessings that we do enjoy and that others lack.
• We are not thankful.
• We wilt too quickly under pressure.
• We consider ourselves and how we’ve failed God.
• We look on our negative experiences and not on what God can do.
We figure out how we would do it, and attempt little.
What Do You Think?
a. If God was willing to use men who murdered, why would he not be willing to use you?
b. Grace means that God works with us even when we don’t deserve it. Does that mean we ask for his help after we’ve saved up a lot of good deeds and can bargain with him, or may the Christian walk boldly to the throne of grace to ask for help?
